Endless belts such as draper or conveyor belts have many uses in agricultural machines. For example, draper belts are used as crop conveyors in swath or windrow belt pick-up platforms that are used with combine harvesters. Some agricultural draper belts used in belt pick-up attachments or similar agricultural machines are joined together by well know joint connections such as a pin and lace splice. A pin and lace splice uses an elongated pin threaded transversely through lacings on each end of the belt so as to create an endless belt loop. However, it is difficult to make field repairs or replace pin and lace splice belts.
Other known agricultural conveyor belts use a simple bolted joint to connect two straight ends of the belt. The ends are over-lapped and secured together by fasteners, such as a nut and bolt. The bolt is inserted perpendicularly through the two belt surfaces. Often a transversely extending flat cover plate is used with the fasteners on the outside face of the belt joint. It is easier to make field repairs and to replace the belt with a bolted joint, but the performance of the bolted joint belt is not as smooth as the pin and lace splice.
Because of the overlapping belt material at the belt joint and because the bolt heads protruding inward on the underside of the joint, the bolted joint can cause the belt to jump and/or slip when the joint and bolts pass over a roller or other support. The belt has a double thickness at the joint and the bolt heads protrude beyond the inside face of the assembled belt. These discontinuous surfaces can cause vibration, belt slippage, wear on the rollers and stress on the belts.
Another bolted belt joint uses a curved metal cover plate over the over-lapping bolted joint. The curved metal cover plate spans the transverse extent of the joint. When the bolts are tightened, the curved plate exerts inward forces on the belt material that produces a recess in the belt to reduce the protrusion of the bolt heads beyond the inside face of the belt.